


5 times Jaime and/or Brienne were undercover (and one time they were under the covers)

by LadyRhiyana



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Chefs, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Lifeguards, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Don't mind me I'm just having fun, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Food Critic, Food Trucks, I love that there is a character tag for the T-Rex, Journalism, Jurassic Park References, This fic is as deep as a kiddies' wading pool
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 17:27:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26661421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyRhiyana/pseuds/LadyRhiyana
Summary: Featuring: stakeouts, cat burglars, food critics and food trucks, investigative journalism and surf life savers - oh, and a T-Rex.
Relationships: Jaime Lannister/Brienne of Tarth
Comments: 43
Kudos: 93





	5 times Jaime and/or Brienne were undercover (and one time they were under the covers)

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to those who helped brainstorm this into being, especially slipsthrufingers for the title and for suggesting food critic!Jaime. 
> 
> Brienne's food-truck is heavily inspired by copperbadge's amazing MCU Foodieverse, and I have to acknowledge the influence of brynnmck's Pilot Light, which seems to have formed my idea of chef-Brienne.

**1\. Undercover at a coffee shop**

Brienne was running late for her tutorial.

She hurried into her favourite café, half-noting the lack of the usual jingling bell – Hot Pie had been meaning to get it fixed for weeks – and said “Just the usual, thanks Pod,” while she dug around in her bag for some loose change.

When she didn’t hear Pod’s cheerful voice calling out her order, she looked up, bemused, to see a new barista staring at her, his arms crossed, an unimpressed expression on his face.

“I’m not Pod,” he said. “What’s your usual order?”

He didn’t look like a barista. For one thing, he wasn’t even wearing an apron. For another, no barista she knew had hair that good, or wore fine cotton dress shirts, even if his sleeves were rolled up to reveal strong, tanned forearms and wide, elegant hands.

“Um,” she said. “Soy latte with a double shot of espresso and a dash of cinnamon on top. And a blueberry muffin. Please.”

Not-Pod’s brows rose. He indicated the board behind him, where the cafe’s usual offerings had been all been crossed out, and a handwritten sheet of butcher’s paper had been taped up with the words:

COFFEE – INSTANT

TEA – FROM A TEA BAG

COW’S MILK ONLY

NO EXCEPTIONS

“What?” she breathed. “No! You can’t – what happened to Pod? And Hot Pie –” she looked around wildly, saw the usual baked goods, and breathed a sigh of relief. Surely the café’s owner couldn’t be too far away, if his fresh-baked muffins were still available.

“Hot Pie came into an unexpected windfall,” Not-Pod said. “He’s sold the café and gone on a tour of the great bakeries of Essos. Your friend Pod won an all-expenses-paid trip to the isle of Lys.”

“Sold the café?” she repeated blankly. “To whom?”

Not-Pod grinned, rakish and charming, but with entirely too many teeth. “To me. Now. A blueberry muffin, was it? Did you want your instant coffee black or white?”

**

The next day, she was convinced that it had all been a dream. Surely her favourite café, with its friendly baristas who made her coffee just the way she liked it, and its wide array of delicious baked goods, had not been sold to a well-dressed golden god who could not work the coffee machine.

That was the only explanation. He’d poured out her coffee from a jug on the counter, yesterday.

But when she pushed open the door of Hot Pie’s, she saw him there again, in another very nice dress shirt – this time in a subtle blue stripe. He was wearing a Rolex, and his cufflinks – and what barista in his right mind wore cufflinks? – were made of platinum.

The baked goods were all gone. In their place was a tray full of donuts, clearly shop-bought. 

“You again,” Not-Pod said. “Coffee, black? Do you want a donut?”

The door to the back of the shop swung open, and a huge, scarred man with long black hair came out, dressed in black camouflage gear and a heavy-duty Kevlar vest, carrying a huge black shotgun.

Brienne froze, staring.

“For fuck’s sake, Lannister!” the giant snarled. “I told you to get that bloody bell fixed!” 

Not-Pod – Lannister – slanted Brienne an apologetic look. He reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out a black leather wallet, flipping it open to reveal an official looking badge.

“Special Agent Jaime Lannister,” he said. “This,” he indicated the giant with the shot-gun, “is my colleague, Agent Clegane.”

“You didn’t see me,” Agent Clegane growled. “I was never here.” He went back through the door and vanished, and she heard the growling of a huge motorcycle as it started up and roared away.

“Okay,” Brienne said slowly. She looked at Agent Lannister. “Is this some kind of stake-out?”

“Exactly!” he grinned. “We’re monitoring the activities of – well, never mind. This café is the perfect spot. If it makes you feel any better, Hot Pie should be back in about a month.”

“A month!” She looked at the great silver coffee machine Pod had tended so lovingly, standing unused and forlorn, at the counter where Hot Pie’s goods had been replaced by a tray of shop-bought donuts. “How are you going to keep this place going for that long? And won’t people suspect?”

Special Agent Lannister only shrugged. “Tax write-off,” he said cryptically.

“Right.” She dropped her bag on the counter and rolled up her sleeves. “If you’re going to pretend to run a coffee shop, you need to actually sell good coffee.”

“Look, my brother says we can’t just keep sending our intern to the nearest Starbucks to fill orders. It’s not a tenable business model –”

She ignored him. “I can work the coffee machine, and I know someone who can supply baked goods. You’ll pay me 50 dragons a day –”

“That little?” he asked, startled.

She stared at him in bafflement.

“As a special consultant, I can swing you at least 200 dragons per day, plus expenses,” he said.

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “That. 200 dragons per day, and your guarantee that when this ridiculous operation of yours is finished, you’ll let Hot Pie have his café back and bring Pod back from Lys.”

“Done,” he said, grinning, holding out his hand.

“Done,” she said, and they shook on it.

**

**2\. Undercover at university**

“Hi.” Brienne stood up, cleared her throat. “My name’s Brienne, and I’m obviously a mature student. Um.” She coughed, and shuffled her feet, trying to remember the details of her cover story. “I’ve come back to university because, well, I’ve done the practical thing, and now I’ve decided it’s time to study something I’m really interested in. I’ve always been fascinated by the Baratheon interregnum and the War of Five Kings…”

With every word she spoke, she felt the other students’ attention drain away. Their eyes glazed over, polite attention giving way to indifference; she saw some of them shift in their chairs or glance down at their phones.

That was fine. She wasn’t here to make friends.

She was here to catch a thief.

Two weeks ago, the Evenfall Museum had been broken into, and its prize exhibit – the ancient sword of the Maid of Tarth, Oathkeeper – had been stolen. CCTV had caught only flashes of the culprit; a lithe, athletic man dressed all in black, masked, the only clue to his identity a calling card left behind, with no name but the picture of a black cat.

The Black Cat was a notorious art and antiquities thief who only liberated artifacts from museums that he thought did not deserve them. And while the Evenfall Museum had certainly seen better days, and Oathkeeper’s display was certainly outdated and not up to modern standards, Brienne – the new curator – was working to upgrade the facilities and open a whole new exhibition on the War of Five Kings and the Second Long Night.

If only the Black Cat had given her a little more _time_ to prove herself!

Oathkeeper had been in her family for countless generations. Its sister sword, Widow’s Wail, hung in the Hall of Heroes at Casterly Rock, as far out of reach as the moon. But Brienne dreamed of one day restoring both swords to their rightful place – and that was on Tarth, no matter what the snooty curators from the Hall of Heroes said. 

Determined to regain her honour and the honour of her museum, Brienne had pored obsessively over the CCTV footage. Certain clues had led her here, to the University of King’s Landing history department –

“Thank you, Brienne,” Professor Jaime Lannister said with a charming smile. “I look forward to having many fascinating conversations with you this semester.”

**

**3\. Undercover food critic**

“I will never understand why you waste your time reviewing these tiny little restaurants that will never aspire to even a single Michelin star. And your fascination with _food trucks –”_

Jaime tuned out his father’s voice and pulled up his Twitter feed, looking for the location of the Bright Star food truck. Today, it seemed, it was parked in the square before the Sept of Baelor. If he hurried, he might just make it before the end of the lunch rush.

“Are you listening to me, Jaime?” his father demanded.

“Yes, Father,” Jaime sighed. “I’m to review _Baratheon’s_ at the Red Keep.”

“Exactly. The head chef is Robert’s younger brother, Renly, so make sure you –”

Jaime gave his father a long look. “I may only be a food critic,” he said, insistent on this, as he rarely was on anything else, “but not even you can buy my opinion.”

“So long as I pay for the ink that publishes that opinion,” his father said dryly, “you’ll write whatever I damn well tell you to.”

**

Brienne handed out an order to a tourist in an I heart King’s Landing shirt, and gave a sigh as she saw that it was just past 2pm, the lunch rush almost over. It was a bright and clear afternoon, and the tourists were out in force, milling about sightseeing and taking selfies in front of the statue of Baelor the Blessed.

As well as the tourists and the office workers and the interested bystanders, the lunch crowd had contained a gratifying number of people she was beginning to think of as her regulars. She had to admit that Pod’s idea of setting up a Twitter account had been sheer genius. Now there were people who would come out to visit her food truck wherever it was, simply because they enjoyed her food – and in one case, she thought, perhaps even her company as well.

Speaking of – through the crowd, she caught a glimpse of a man with a loose-limbed, confident walk and a head of tousled golden curls, and her lips curved up in a foolish smile.

She hadn’t thought he would come today. 

“Hello Jaime,” she said shyly, twisting a dishcloth in her hands and cursing herself as her cheeks flushed blotchy red. “Have you come for lunch? I’m almost finished, but for you I can –”

He grinned at her, a flashing shock of charm. “I ran out on an important meeting to come and see you,” he said. “Yes, please – whatever your daily special is.”

Jaime had been one of her first regulars. He seemed to really enjoy his food, always picking something different every time; eventually he simply said that he trusted her, and would eat whatever she recommended. As if he was at his favourite restaurant and she was the trusted head chef, and not just a lowly sous chef trying to earn extra money with a food truck.

She’d started to spend a lot of time in her tiny kitchen after her long shifts, making up dishes entirely for him. She experimented with new ingredients and flavours, pushing herself to come up with something that he might like, and she savoured every moment of his enjoyment.

“It’s grilled fish tacos today,” she said, “with my own special dressing.”

“Perfect,” he said.

She turned away to her grill, trying to hide her foolish grin.

When she handed him a pair of tacos in a recycled cardboard container, he looked down at the food, as he always did, with the air of a connoisseur enjoying a rare delicacy. He took the time to examine the presentation, to savour the aroma, and when he took his first bite, it was always small, delicate, as if he wanted to roll the flavours on his tongue rather than simply fill an empty stomach. He closed his eyes and made a low, sighing noise, almost a moan of pleasure, and Brienne’s cheeks flushed once more at the sight of him.

Gods. What would he look like, rolling other things on his tongue? He looked like a man to take his time, to savour and appreciate –

“Lime and coriander,” he said, “perfectly complimenting the fish - which is so fresh, you might have pulled it from the water yourself. So simple, and yet so perfectly executed.”

She’d gotten up at 3am in the morning and been down at the docks in the freezing wind, searching for the perfect fish – all for the purpose of seeing Jaime eat her food with such enjoyment.

“I’m glad you liked it,” she said simply.

“I loved it,” he said, with such open sincerity that she could not help but smile back at him. “I can’t wait to see what you come up with next time.” 

**

 _Baratheon’s_ at the Red Keep was overpriced and pretentious, deliberately catering to guests with more money than taste. The menu was desperately trendy and over-elaborate, and there were no prices. He sighed, bracing himself for an evening of too-rich and over-complicated food.

But beneath the elaborate preparation and the flamboyant look-what-I-can-do attention-grabbing – _Renly all over,_ he thought wryly – he thought he could detect something familiar. Delightful combinations of flavours he’d encountered only recently; the delicate touch of a master, beneath all the superfluous detail.

The fish – a hasty addition to the menu, he gathered, as the description was far simpler than all the other dishes – was gloriously fresh, the dressing a perfect compliment –

As soon as he realised, he stood up hastily and made his way to the kitchen. The maître d’ tried to bar his way, but he simply shouldered the man aside and strode through the heavy double doors. As always, the kitchen was a scene of controlled chaos; at the centre of it all, rather than tall, perfectly-groomed Renly, was the owner of the Bright Star food truck, no longer shy and awkward but in her element. She issued commands with perfect authority, and was obeyed without question; no detail was too small for her exacting eye; she subjected every dish laid before her to severe scrutiny before waving it away to be served.

Jaime watched on in sincere admiration.

Later, when he sat in front of his computer screen, contemplating his review of _Baratheon’s_ , he knew exactly what he wanted to write.

**

The next morning, Brienne was woken at an ungodly hour by a barrage of excited texts from her friends and family.

 _Have you seen it????? OMG!!_ wrote Margaery.

 _Where did you meet him??_ Sansa asked. _Why didn’t you tell me!_

More ominously, there was one from Renly: _The game’s up, Bri. We’re both summoned to see Robert at 9am sharp._

Her father’s message was perhaps the most coherent. _I saw this lovely review of your food truck, darling. Congratulations!_

Wondering and bemused, she clicked on her father’s link and was directed to The King’s Landing Times, to the latest review by the most influential food critic in the city, Jaime Lannister.

Her heart skipped a beat. Of course, she thought numbly. Of course. How had she not known?

 _The most exciting dining to be found in the city is not in fine restaurants,_ wrote Jaime, _but on the streets. Brienne Tarth, owner of the Bright Star food truck, is one of the most original and adventurous chefs quietly perfecting her art not in the rarefied atmosphere of a restaurant but from the inside of her truck. She tailors her menus not to the elite but to the people she meets out and about in the city…_

For the first time in the nearly five years since she’d left culinary school, she contemplated pulling the covers over her head and going back to sleep. But there were bills to pay, and she could not simply hide away from the world – she hauled herself out of bed and got up to face the day.

**

The end of a crazy lunch rush saw her handing out a last order to a mother and her two young children, both tugging eagerly at her jacket as she tried to bring them to order. Brienne smiled a little wistfully, and waved them off.

Her feet ached and her shoulders were sore from long hours hunched over in the confines of her truck. The crowds had been crazy today, all her regulars rushing to congratulate her, and an amazing number of newcomers who all said that they’d read about her in the _Times_ and couldn’t wait to check her out. She’d sold out of nearly everything, something that had never before happened to her.

And just as she began to look around for him, there he was – as handsome and smiling as ever, as if he were just an ordinary man and not a food critic at all.

“Hello,” he said, a little shyly. “I hope you didn’t mind that I –”

“That you exposed _Baratheon’s_ head chef as no more than a puppet?”

He winced. “Well, no. I hope there was no –”

“I got fired,” she said simply.

He looked at her, with his tousled curls and outrageous good looks and his fabulous palate – and all she could see was the man who ate her food with such trust and enjoyment, who smiled at her and simply by his presence encouraged her to experiment more, to branch out further and push herself harder. 

“That place didn’t deserve you,” he replied. “You were meant for bigger and better things.”

“A food truck?” she could not help but laugh. He was right. She deserved at least a kitchen and a restaurant of her own.

“Nothing less than the stars,” he said. “I’ll help you get them, if you like.”

“I’ll earn them myself,” she retorted. And then, because today was so extraordinary that she felt she could reach out for anything and simply take it, she said – “I’ve sold out of all my food. Do you want to come back to mine, and I can cook for you there?”

He stared at her, his smile bright as the sun. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I’d like that very much.”

**

**4\. Undercover reporter**

“Ms…Dearheart,” the HR Manager at Lanniscorp said, with raised brows. “You’ll be Mr Lannister’s EA.”

Brienne’s heart raced with excitement. If she could get close to Tywin Lannister, the CEO, or Kevan Lannister the COO, or even Tyrion Lannister, the CFO –

“Mr Jaime Lannister,” the HR Manager said, dashing Brienne’s hopes. “Come on. I’ll take you up and introduce you.”

They took the lift up to the 20th floor. On the way, the HR Manager looked her up and down, seemed to hesitate, and then came to a decision. “Ms Dearheart,” she said, “a word of advice.”

But before she could utter her advice, the chime sounded and the lift came to a stop. The HR Manager straightened herself, gave Brienne an apologetic little smile, and led the way to the corner office.

She knocked, though the door was open; Jaime Lannister was standing with his back to the room, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling glass window at the great expanse of Lannisport harbour below. He turned when he heard the knock.

Because there had been no time for a warning, Brienne was struck unaware by the full force of him. He was wearing a sleek dark grey suit, perfectly fitted, and his hair was long and curling at his collar, and his jawline was frankly ridiculous.

“Mr Lannister,” the HR Manager said, “this is Ms Dearheart.”

They shook hands.

“Mr Lannister,” Brienne murmured politely.

“Dear heart,” he said.

**

The alias had been a throwaway idea; she’d been filling out the job application and had spared no more than a brief moment to think of anagrams for Tarth.

She soon came to regret it.

**

 _Look for evidence of shady dealing and intimidation_ , her editor had said. _Somehow, Old Man Lannister has a way of making even the most complicated problems just – vanish_. _Strikes are broken. Heads of overseas cartels are magically assassinated, their organisations collapsing in the aftermath. Even pirates who attack their ships are destroyed._

If she’d been able to snoop around the beating heart of the company – the executive offices, operations or finance, all on the 25th floor, or even Security in the basement – she might have been able to see _something_. But here on the 20th floor, working for Tywin Lannister’s dilettante heir who rejoiced in the title of Chief International Liaison Officer – whatever that meant – she found herself far from the centre of things.

Lannister and his Deputy International Liaison Officers, Mr Blackwater and Mr Clegane, who never seemed to come into headquarters, spent most of their time junketing about Westeros and Essos, flitting here, there and everywhere on no identifiable schedule. Lannister, at least, came into the office once or twice a week and could be contacted by email; Blackwater and Clegane rarely even answered their phones.

At first, Brienne had thought it was her job to organise the three men. She’d asked if she needed to book travel and accommodation, or if she needed to do any sort of coordination at all.

“Dear heart,” Lannister had smiled fondly at her, causing her pulse to skip a beat. “Don’t worry about accountability. You’re here to make us look respectable. If anyone ever comes looking for us – though I doubt that very much – just say that we’re out of the office and you don’t know when we’ll be back.”

In the two months Brienne had worked for the International Liaison Office, not one person – except Tyrion Lannister – had come looking for any of them. She’d tried out her cover story on Tywin Lannister’s second son, and he had only thrown back his head and laughed.

But as the weeks and months passed, as she got used to seeing Lannister flit in and out of the office – always smiling warmly at her and calling her dear heart – she began to see a strange pattern.

The strangely convenient accidents that befell Lanniscorp’s enemies always seemed to coincide with one or more of the Liaison Officers’ unscheduled jaunts across Westeros or into Essos –

 _Into the field,_ she realised, suddenly. _Not Liaison Officers. Field Officers._

_Enforcement Officers._

**

**5\. Undercover at the beach** **(surf life-savers)**

She arrived at the beach about half an hour before dawn, yawning and stretching as she paced barefoot across the sand, down to the tideline. The air was still chill, but it would soon be another scorching summer’s day, the sky burning blue above – a perfect day for the beach.

By mid-morning, the shore would be packed with locals and tourists alike. Families with young children; teenagers wanting to surf and show off for each other; sunbathers of all shapes and sizes, lying in the sun and working on their tans; people who just wanted to swim in the cool water while the temperate soared on the land.

But for now it was windswept and lonely – only Brienne, the empty stretch of shore, and the vast sea.

“Morning, Tarth!” a cheerful voice called.

She closed her eyes and sighed. There went the calm, lonely sense of peace – shattered by Jaime’s blithe self-confidence.

“Jaime,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Selmy sent me. Said you should have a partner on this undercover venture.” Padding footsteps sounded behind her, and she turned to see him – tall, broad-shouldered – though not so tall and broad-shouldered as Brienne – with a perfectly toned torso tapering down to –

“At least put on some boardshorts,” she begged. “I can’t face Speedos this early in the morning.”

He only grinned. “Gotta get into character,” he said. “It’s been a while since my days at Casterly Rock Surf Lifesaving Club, but I still remember the cap and the Speedos –”

“That must have been twenty years ago!” She tried not to think of him as an eager teenage boy, bright strips of zinc on his cheeks, nose and forehead, eagerly participating in the club’s junior lifesaving activities. “Times have changed. Fashions have changed.”

“And yet –” he strode down to the water, stretched his whole body, deliberately flaunting his lean, tanned musculature – clad only in an extremely brief strip of stretchy red fabric. “You can’t take your eyes off me.”

It was true, damn him. It was even a fight to keep her hands off him. She tried curling them into fists and tucking them under her arms, pretending to shiver.

He looked over his shoulder. His smile was bright, and curling, and wicked. “Come on, Blue,” he said. He held out a tube of sunscreen invitingly – though where it had come from, she hardly knew. “Come and do my back.”

Helpless, she crossed over to him and pushed him backwards into the surf, shrieking with laughter as he pulled her in after him.

**

They covered each other thoroughly with sunscreen, afterwards.

**

Soon the sun climbed higher into the sky and the beachgoers began to arrive. The early birds claimed the best spots, setting up portable tents on the sand and spreading out their towels; others who came later had to be content with wherever they could find space.

Bobbing heads began to appear in the cool green water, most of them swimming between the flags that Brienne and Jaime had set up – but, as always, a few heedless tourists and teenagers drifted outside the safe zone.

She waved at them and put the loudspeaker to her mouth. “Please ensure that you swim between the flags!”

Not surprisingly, they ignored her.

“I am an elite underwater operator,” she said to Jaime, as she kept an eye on the sea, looking for any raised hands that would indicate someone in need of rescue. “I can swim for ten miles without breaking a sweat. I can hold my breath for nearly four minutes underwater. I have taken part in clandestine operations in warzones I’m not allowed to name.”

“I know you have,” Jaime said. “I was there beside you, every minute.”

“And now I’m reduced to babysitting swimming tourists,” she said. “Reminding them to slip, slop, slap* and swim between the flags.”

“Think of it this way, Tarth,” Jaime said. “We get to have a nice holiday at the beach.” He put his arm around her waist, pressed a quick kiss to her cheek.

“This is not my idea of a holiday,” she grumbled, but smiled at him anyway.

Inevitably, one of the swimming tourists got caught in a rip and began to flounder. His friends began to panic and shout, and their frantically waving hands caught Brienne’s attention. She looked wryly at Jaime, caught up her board and ran into the water.

Unlike Baywatch, she did not run in slow motion, she was not wearing a skimpy red swimsuit, and her breasts did not bounce with every step. But she knew Jaime was watching her, and knew without even looking what he was thinking.

She threw herself belly down on her board and paddled swiftly out to the surf, her shoulders flexing powerfully; she knelt up on the board, her thighs strong and muscular, and looked around her, quickly identifying the struggling swimmer. He was gasping, his hand waving desperately; she grasped him and pulled him up with all her strength, dragging him bodily onto her board, saying: “I’ve got you now, it’s okay, let’s go back now –”

Jaime took him from her when she arrived back on the shore, dragging him up onto the sand and laying him out flat. The swimmer’s friends all gathered round, worried and afraid; Brienne did her best to calm them while Jaime swiftly performed first aid, his shoulders and arms flexing with every compression.

Soon enough, the swimmer choked, coughing up water, and Jaime rolled him onto his side in the recovery position. He looked up at Brienne, his eyes shining with simple delight – how often in their line of work, she wondered, did they get to save lives rather than taking them?

The rest of the day was uneventful, and when the sun finally sank into the sea, painting the sky in shades of crimson and gold and deep blue, Brienne let out a long, slow breath of pure contentment.

“See?” Jaime asked. “A nice holiday at the beach.”

**

They could have wrapped up their undercover mission in three days. In the end, they took a full week.

**

**+1 And the one time they were literally under the covers**

The ground shook. The glass of water on their bedside table shuddered, concentric ripples flaring out with each impact. But they paid no heed, caught up in the earth moving from a very different cause; Jaime had his head buried between her thighs, and Brienne was gasping and writhing and clutching at his hair.

It was the great earth-shattering roar that brought them back to reality.

Panicked, Jaime moved faster than he ever had before in his life, and for lack of anything better to do grabbed the heavy bedcovers, diving on top of Brienne and tossing the covers up and over their heads –

“Keep very still,” he whispered hoarsely. “If we don’t move, it can’t see us.”

The T-Rex – what the fuck, how did they miss the T-Rex getting loose? – peered into the window of their hotel room – they were only on the second floor – its slit-pupilled golden eye hideously magnified. It sniffed, its great nostrils flaring, and shoved at the glass with its great head, causing the whole building to shudder.

Jaime clutched at Brienne’s solid form, her broad shoulders and muscular torso, as much for support as to hold her still. They breathed as silently as they could, trying to peer out through the tiny gap Jaime had left, as the _giant fucking dinosaur_ threw back its head and roared, before finally turning and stalking away in another direction. Screams could be heard coming from the poolside, and more triumphant roaring; presumably those poor bastards had tried to run.

“Holy fuck,” Jaime breathed. “Holy fuck.”

Slowly, very slowly, he pushed the covers down and sat up. All the slow, lazy arousal of two minutes ago was gone; his body was flooded with adrenaline, and his hands were shaking.

He looked at Brienne, who looked just as stunned and shell-shocked as he felt. Her blue eyes were wide, and her face was white beneath her freckles; her hair stood up around her head like a dandelion, and there was a tiny purpling bruise on her neck.

Suddenly, they began to laugh.

“Next anniversary,” Brienne said, in between fits of slightly hysterical giggling, “I don’t care what exotic, far-flung resorts Tyrion books us into – we’re staying at home on Tarth.”

**Author's Note:**

> *Slip, slop, slap - a particularly catchy anti-skin cancer jingle from the late 80s/early 90s, reminding everyone to slip on a shirt, slop on sunscreen and slap on a hat.


End file.
